You Can Buy the Seats From These Retired United 747s

Update 3/21/19: Due to overwhelming interest in purchasing seats, it may take some time for UAM to respond to requests.

One of the best flights of my life was United's final 747 journey from San Francisco to Honolulu. So I wonder what the airline's 747-400s are up to over at their Tupelo, Mississippi retirement community.

Then, a few days ago, I saw them pop up in my Instagram feed, courtesy of aerial photographer Ryan Patterson. While I managed to photograph them from above in Victorville, California (VCV), Ryan got up close and personal on the ground.

Ryan went down to visit several of United's former 747s ahead of a planned dismantling at Universal Asset Management's Tupelo Regional Airport (TUP) facility, and was kind enough to share some of his incredible photos with TPG. (Viewer discretion is advised: AvGeeks may find the images below to be disturbing.)

The aircraft are now property of Universal Asset Management, which is working through the dismantling process.

I reached out to UAM, and learned that the company is even selling seats directly to consumers — triple economy seats (like those pictured) below are available for $2,000 plus shipping (which tends to be expensive). You can email media@uaminc.com if you're interested in buying some for yourself.

Business-class seats may be available as well, but UAM hasn't released pricing, beyond noting that the purchase cost and shipping will probably be quite a bit more.

While some aircraft are parked with the intention of flying them again, clearly that's not in the cards for United's former jumbo-jet fleet. At least we'll always have that Hawaii-bound farewell.